Carl Blare

It’s one of those lazy rainy fall-like days here in the middle of north america, perfect time to scan the dial.

It’s one of those lazy rainy fall-like days here in the middle of north america, perfect time to scan the dial.

At 1380 AM, a local 5kW sports station, I caught a fish. The station is sending out a string of satellite instructions, one per minute, from MRN Radio Network, with dead air and a tone every 60-seconds. The recorded message keeps saying that motor racing is on a rain hold and will resume at 3 PM.

Now I’m getting a ten minute countdown to whatever will be on the net at 2 PM local time.

The Sunday staff person is probably down the street at Steak and Shake or at a nearby bar. He probably thinks motor racing is on the air. Maybe he’s just asleep in the station lounge.

Or, have the rules relaxed so much that licensed stations don’t need an attendant?

Latest message, “This is MRN Radio. At the tone it will be 4-minutes to airtime.”

I must say, this “mistake” is far more interesting than regular sports programming.

“1-minute to air time.”

“30-seconds to air time.”

“Welcome back to Chicagoland speedway…..it continues to rain….”

NO LOCAL STATION I.D. AT 2 PM.

Now two network guys are giving a detailed coverage of the “off again on again rain.”

The Motor Racing Network has sent it back to the local station for the next hour. Nothing. Nope. No one on duty. Dead air.

WE PROGRAM THIS INTERRUPTION WITH A VERY BIG STORY

LIVE FROM THE LOW POWER NEWSROOM

This is big. This is major.

Read the thread OH HELL YEAH!!! and you’ll see what I mean.

The title “General Antenna” refers to the fact that I am not right now concerned with 3-meter antennas, but with general antenna performance.

The title “General Antenna” refers to the fact that I am not right now concerned with 3-meter antennas, but with general antenna performance.

Over on the Big Talker thread(part 15 on shortwave) I said that today I changed the dipole antenna and had radically different results. Let me explain a few ongoing confusions.

WHEREAS most antenna books tell us to cut the length of an antenna to specific measurements, i.e., half wavelength, I found something different in a book by Edward M. Noll, W3FQJ, “73 DIPOLE AND LONG WIRE ANTENNAS,” where he writes, “Physical length is shorter than calculated wavelength by about 5%.”

Wow. 5-percent is a lot. Shorter.

AND another discrepancy has been noticed where some writers say the transmission-line should be a multiple of the wavelength, but another writer says the transmission-line should be an odd multiple of the wavelength.

Please close the gap on these seemingly different sets of instruction for calculating antennas. What say you?

Just wondering.

A tightly-drawn violin string goes up in acoustic pitch the tighter it is tuned.

Just wondering.

A tightly-drawn violin string goes up in acoustic pitch the tighter it is tuned.

What if a strong wire antenna is brought to an extreme degree of tautness? Does its resonant RF frequency increase?

Trouble is, even if it worked, it would not solve any problems for Part 15 medium wave.

But maybe, again depending on whether tautness has any affect, there’s a counter-method of tuning lower. A string bass has a thicker string that tends to be helical. We have talked about helical antennas. Maybe this concept brings a new way of viewing their potential.

All of a sudden we have two times here at KDXradio.com.

First there are clocks on our website from WorldTime Servers, which just registered 9:30 AM CDT.

All of a sudden we have two times here at KDXradio.com.

First there are clocks on our website from WorldTime Servers, which just registered 9:30 AM CDT.

Then, three minutes later, the little clock down in the right lower corner of the screen registered 9:30 AM CDT. The clocks are 3-minutes apart and have been for awhile.

Come to think of it there was an “upgrade” from Microsoft a few weeks back which was purported to repair something with switching from Daylight to Standard Time. That seemed odd, because the clock has been making that switch for a few years without a problem.

It is like being in two different times, 3-minutes apart.

Later I’ll check WWV, the shortwave time station, to find out which of the two times resides in reality. It would be a shame to live 3-minutes outside of reality.

What time is it where you are?